


Hidden Worlds

by Aphilaeus



Series: The Skywalker Saga [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Archaeology, Exploration, Jedi Temple, Original Species, The Force, Unknown Regions, Worldbuilding, pre-AOTC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aphilaeus/pseuds/Aphilaeus
Summary: Rachi Sitra encounters a government from the Unknown Regions, quite eager to be an ally to the Jedi Order.





	Hidden Worlds

Travelling along the Murgo Choke was a dangerous journey, but with the assistance of the Force, Rachi Sitra was able to find the way towards the Utegetu Nebula. The hyperspace route was tracked by an ancient species, one that Rachi did not know of, but suspected was either the Gree or Rakata. From her archaeological digs further out in the Outer Rim, the Gree Enclave had once reached as far as Sinton, past the Namadii Corridor.

She had never made it  _ in _ to the current Gree Enclave, because now they were a reclusive race, rarely seen throughout the galaxy. Those who were no longer in the Enclave claimed that they were banished, and their memories wiped by the Gree Force-users in their Enclave.

The hyperlane meandered around two binary star systems which emitted immense gravity wells. More gravity wells were emitted by large, old stars and a few neutron stars. With a ship as small as Rachi’s, she believed that it wouldn’t be  _ too _ intensely difficult to navigate. The entrance to the hyperlane was located in the Murgo-1 system, which contained merely a red dwarf and a small, atmosphere-less world no larger than a Coruscanti moon.

She entered hyperspace, and immediately entered a deep trance. Minutes passed into hours. Feeling her way past the first gravity well - a yellow star and orange star, of similar sizes, orbiting one another.

_ First stop _ .

A small space-buoy, a red flashing light designated MURGO-2 SYSTEM. This system was a single brown dwarf orbited by nine asteroids and one proto-moon, misshapen and made up of common minerals. Rachi stared at the moon through the viewscreen, slowly moving through space. The brown dwarf emitted a faint light, but not enough to warm any of the comets floating through space. Another meditative state. She was not entirely sure of her destination, all she felt when she reached Rago was that something strong with the Force, and long-forgotten was waiting for her.

Second gravity well - a blue supergiant, the stronger of the two, and a crimson dwarf. A neutron star was not far from them.

_ Second stop _ .

MURGO-3 SYSTEM, was the red flashing light this time. This was a broken, lifeless world drifting through space, orbited by its own remnants - remnants of an ancient war between Gree and Rakata. She piloted her ship closer to the world, and a slowly-orbiting remnant of some sort of tower passed by. Using her ship’s tractor beam, she pulled the tower closer.

A millennia-old bone dropped out of one of the thin windows.  _ Interesting _ , she thought, and dropped the tower from the tractor beam. With a deep breath, she entered the third and final meditation.

_ Third stop _ .

The third leg of the journey was not so difficult, and the MURGO-4 SYSTEM buoy was a welcome sight. A shimmering yellow star was at the center, and the data downloaded from the buoy’s internal computer ordered out the system for her. Closest to the sun was a scorching rock, unfit for life - save for any Mustafarians who ventured off-world. Further from that was a planet without an atmosphere, located in the system’s habitable zone. Had the planet been graced with an atmosphere, maybe she would have been encountering new species. The world, designated Murgo-4 c, had two small moons.

Finally, there was a gas giant orbited by several dozen satellites of varying sizes, ranging from the size of a grav-ball to a regularly-sized spherical moon. Rachi had left hyperspace facing toward the gas giant, from her position only a bright object, slowly moving across the stars.

Rachi rotated her ship to her right, and saw the Utegetu Nebula she had come to map out. It was a shell nebula - remnant of a lower-mass star at the end of its life. Near the center was, presumably, a white dwarf. A beep on her console ripped her out of her musings.

The staticky words from her transmitter could barely be made out, but they sounded like they were in Sy Bisti.  _ Good _ , she thought,  _ a language I know _ . Sy Bisti was a trade language from the Unknown Regions, and she had learned it during her travels because often had she ventured out into that region.

« _ Hello? Is someone out there? _ » she asked in Sy Bisti, and the person on the other end stopped talking.

« _ Who approaches the Untar’iszu? _ » was the response, without the static from before. The last word sounded like a different language, and she assumed it was the Utegetu Nebula they were speaking of.

«Rachi Sitra, Jedi Knight.» she replied.

« _ Jedi Knight! _ » was the response, and from the inflection it sounded like surprise. More words were said, in the same language they used to describe the nebula, and they sounded like the speaker was talking away from the microphone. « _ We have never met Jedi before, but we have heard of you. We are most honored! _ » A pause. « _ I am Lord Ehain Jaruuk, of the Indonai Scouts, Second Fleet. If you would wish, we have a station not far from here where we could discuss our… different governments. And, we have something that you as a Jedi may find interesting. _ »

Rachi thought about that for a moment.  _ Different governments _ ? She had heard of the Indonai before, from previous excursions near the Unknown Regions, as some government hidden far from the Core and incredibly technologically advanced. «It would be my pleasure, Lord Jaruuk.»

« _ Good. I am transmitting the coordinates to your craft now. _ » There was a blink, the coordinates put into her navigational database, and then Lord Jaruuk broke the transmission. A most interesting turn of events, one she had not anticipated. His mention of something she may find interesting pointed towards a Jedi site of some sort, but she had not heard of anything of the sort so far from the Core. The furthest she had gone was to Ossus.

Rachi still had no idea  _ where _ the transmission originated from, and was not getting any bad feelings from her conversation. She plugged in the coordinates to their station, and was greeted with hyperspace again. The journey took only a few minutes, before she was staring at a green world, splotched with large seas and rivers snaking out from them. There was far more land than water, and half of the world was illuminated by a white star. From her vantage, she could see two moons orbiting on the far side of the planet.

Now, she could see the Second Fleet. It was five large ships, three in a triangle facing the planet from the sun’s direction, and two more on either side of a space station. Another transmission reached her ship.

« _ This is Lord Ehain Jaruuk speaking again. Jedi Knight Sitra, we would ask you to dock your craft in the space station, where we may speak. _ » Immediately after, he cut the connection. A strange choice, but these were two different organizations meeting for the first time. Rachi obeyed, and floated into the space station. The hangar was not unlike regular Republic hangars, but the design was far more sleek, a shiny silver gloss over the walls and ceiling.

Stepping down from the ramp, she was greeted with a group of individuals. At the front was a male of a species she did not recognize - or, at least, she assumed he was male. He was wearing flowing garb, similar to Jedi robes, but was a dark gray in color. His skin was a lavender purple, a humanoid face, with silver-purple hair cut short around his head. His irises were a lighter purple than his skin.

«You must be Jedi Knight Sitra, that we have been expecting.» the man at the front said in Sy Bisti. «I will take you to Lord Jaruuk.» Around him were four individuals, wearing masks which only revealed their eyes - which were all of similar colors to the front man’s. Two of them had similar light purple eyes, one of the other ones had pink eyes, and the last one had lime green eyes. Rachi followed the man at the front, who led them down a long corridor to a smaller room. 

The room had a table, as well as what looked like a minibar with a deactivated serving droid behind it. The table was not that long, but long enough for someone’s extended family to fit in. At one end of the table was another member of the lavender-skinned species. 

«Ah, Jedi Knight Sitra.» He stood from his chair, said something in the other language to the man who greeted them, and that man left. «I am Lord Ehain Jaruuk, as you may have guessed by now.» He held out his hand as she rounded the table. «I was told a customary greeting in the Galactic Republic was to shake the other’s hand.»

«Yes, it is.» Sitra replied. «I am surprised that you wished to talk to me so freely.»

«We Vivonahi value courtesy.» he said, with a smile. He returned to his seat, and motioned for her to take a seat as well.  _ Vivonahi _ , she made a mental note,  _ they are called the Vivonahi _ . She would have to add that to her database. «Besides, we have heard much of the Jedi Order.»

«I did not know that tales of the Jedi made it to the Unknown Regions.» Rachi replied. Jaruuk nodded.  _ At least that’s something the galaxy has in common. Nodding. _

«They have. And you follow the Force» - he said the Force in Basic, interestingly - «which I believe is something akin to what the Indonai call the  _ jaktauri _ . In Sy Bisti, I suppose that would translate to binding.» Rachi took note of that as well. _ They have knowledge of the Force _ .

«You mentioned to me there would be something interesting for a Jedi on this world. Is there something you’ve found? I happen to be a Jedi archaeologist.» Jaruuk smiled again.

«Indeed, even more so if you are an archaeologist! A temple, of some sort, bearing statues which match descriptions of Jedi we have received. I would be happy to take you down to it.» he said. He stood from his seat, and looked out the viewport behind him. «We called this planet Salekelahn, in the Lahnii language meaning  _ home of  _ Lahn.»

«Lahn?» Rachi asked him. He turned around.

«The species that lives here are called Lahn, the ones who speak Lahnii.» He began to walk towards the door, and Rachi followed him with her eyes. «Come. I will show you the site.» She followed him to another hangar, which contained several starships which appeared to be shuttles for short-range travel, and took her aboard. There was a droid pilot which responded to a command in the Vivonahi language -  _ Vivona’i _ , he had said - and the shuttle was approaching Salekelahn’s surface.

«What is it that you know of your  _ jaktauri _ ?» Rachi asked, trying her best to pronounce what Jaruuk had called the Force.

«We have an order, similar to the Jedi Order. They are called  _ yashkutauri _ . A mix, between  _ yashkutt _ , meaning order, and  _ jaktauri _ , meaning binding. They are the Jedi Order to the Indonai Empire, who can be called similar to the Galactic Republic.» He paused for a moment. «Our Emperor, Injisfel Ehlama the Second, descends from a long line of emperors who have ruled Indonai Space.»

The shuttle landed out front of a large structure, which did appear to be built like a Jedi temple from the outside. She followed Jaruuk towards the entrance to the temple, which was flanked by two massive statues of Jedi holding lightsaber pikes.

«This is the temple,» he said, «and we have excavated much from it, including what you must call light-saber.» Lord Jaruuk’s pronunciation of lightsaber was more enunciated than the normal pronunciation, but Rachi only associated that with his lack of knowledge on Basic words, and Jedi language. «There are runes, of a language we have not identified.»

«I may know what the language is,» she replied, and they walked towards the temple’s entrance. «Like I said, I am an archaeologist, and I have been to many Jedi sites throughout the galaxy.»

Jaruuk smiled. «After our evaluation is done, we would be happy to allow Jedi to resettle here if need be. You seemed quite surprised of this temple’s location.»

«I am.» she replied. «I had never heard of a Jedi temple in such a strange location. I suppose, perhaps there used to be another hyperlane which led here, perhaps from the Core Worlds or Deep Core.» Jaruuk nodded.

«Perhaps.»

The entry room to the temple had high, vaulted ceilings, with several smaller statues resembling the ones on the outside. The entry room had several hallways snaking out from it. Other Vivonahi, as well as members of other species she didn’t recognize, were moving in and out of them, carrying on hovercarts loads of artifacts. One species resembled Devaronians, but she saw multiple of them around the room, their skin colors ranging from red to yellow, and some had a single cranial horn jutting out from their skull, which branched off into more horns.

There was another species - short, stubby, azure-skinned creatures with small eyes and no visible mouth. They also had long tails, curled up against their back.

«The horned species, are the Javanans. The ones who have no protruding horns from the central one are the Karavi, offshoots.» Jaruuk explained, seemingly sensing her intrigue at the alien species. «The others are the Qaluri, and they communicate by rubbing their tails up against you. Telepathic, because they cannot speak.»

_ Interesting _ , she thought, «And… they speak in a language someone knows?»

«They speak...» Jaruuk seemed to consider that for a moment. «I am not entirely sure. When they speak, you understand.» He continued to walk forward, and Rachi followed.

«What are you planning on doing with all these artifacts?» she asked.

«If you wish to take them, that can be arranged.» Jaruuk replied. «Otherwise, they will be taken back to Ryah’edka and placed in museums.»

Rachi sighed. She looked over at the hovercarts of the artifacts, and most of them were rocks, that looked like broken statues. Nothing they were taking was in good condition, and she would have to have it restored, if she could piece together the parts. «I will leave it to you, Lord Jaruuk. After all, you found this place.»

«Thank you, Jedi Knight Sitra.» he said, placing his hands together and bowing forward. «We will be departing this system soon enough, and whenever the Jedi may wish, they can come here. In the future, we hope that there can be cooperation between our Orders.»

Rachi smiled. «I would hope so, too.»


End file.
